Madhvi Parekh

Pretty Brilliant Women in the Arts

Article

No. 38 • January 2026

For generations, the story of art has been told through a singular lens. When the first editions of canonical texts like Janson’s History of Art and Gombrich’s The Story of Art were published, they featured zero women artists. The Pretty Brilliant: Women in the Arts series aims to make whole what has long been a one-sided story. In these issues, featuring 583 artists, we celebrate women who have always been creating, innovating, and inspiring, like Madhvi Parekh.

text: Emma Clarkson

Fig 1. Madhvi Parekh

Modernist painter Paul Klee once said: ‘A line is a dot that went for a walk.’ Throughout Madhvi Parekh’s work, dots certainly amble through the vibrant village of Sanjaya, the artist’s childhood home. Born in the Western-coastal Indian state of Gujarat, Parekh’s work echoes the memories of her youth, familial rituals such as intricate rangoli floor designs, and folk motifs.

A relative latecomer on the artistic scene, Parekh began drawing during her pregnancy with her first child. Parekh’s husband Manu, a renowned artist at the time, gifted her a book on drawing exercises by Paul Klee: ‘One day I told my husband that I want[ed] to learn painting and he was elated by the idea. Rather than theorising art, he asked me to draw a circle, a square, a triangle. Before long, these shapes started evolving into distinct forms – a moon, a speaking tree.’

Decades later and the self-taught Parekh has been exhibited across the world. Her work originated as drawings and paintings taking inspiration from local folk legends and figures but these anthropomorphic forms have since evolved off the page. In collaboration with artisans at the Chanakya School of Craft, Parekh oversaw the production of fantastical creatures, using a papier-mâché technique, which were subsequently embroidered using various intricate needlepoint techniques. These creatures stage a scene exuding a charm reminiscent of children’s fairy tales. Parekh’s style has been compared to that of Paul Klee and even Joan Miro’s in the bulbosity of her figures but while Parekh might have been influenced by the former, her work is unique and endlessly pioneering.

Madhvi Parekh, Karishma Swali and Chanakya School School of Craft, Rural Utopia, 2023, hand-sculpted paper mache with organic jute, linen and cotton thread | courtesy Chanakya Foundation

Fig 2. Madhvi Parekh, Karishma Swali and Chanakya School School of Craft, Rural Utopia, 2023, hand-sculpted paper mache with organic jute, linen and cotton thread | courtesy Chanakya Foundation